Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section In this section you can discuss everything GeForce driver related. GeForce ForceWare and GeForce Exerience drivers are for NVIDIA Quadro and all GeForce based videocards.

Double buffering:
Frame A is on screen. Frame B is being rendered. If B is not completed before the next screen redraw (1/60th of a second) the GPU will have to wait for the next screen redraw (another 1/60th of a second) before flipping the buffers. The GPU cannot start rendering the next frame until this happens because there is no empty buffer to render to. If this happens consistently (because the GPU is incapable of rendering the current scene in less than 1/60th of a second) then you are locked at 30fps - two screen refreshes per buffer flip, even if your card could be doing 50fps with vsync off.

[Note that if you are CPU limited and not GPU limited then frame rate is limited only by how quickly the CPU can supply the GPU with frames, so you can get say ~45fps even double buffered].

FIFO triple buffering (sometimes called "GPU render ahead" by people who insist that TB is only TB if it uses LIFO queuing rather than the far more common FIFO) solves the problem by having an extra frame buffer in-between A and B, which means when the game is GPU limited there is always a buffer ready to be rendered to (no need to wait for screen refresh before starting the next frame).

I think we understand how double and triple buffering works, but being GPU limited doesn't play a direct roll in either case. Anything that puts your FPS below 60 with double buffering will pull you to 30 fps on a 60hz monitor. Or at least that has been my understanding for a long time.

but being GPU limited doesn't play a direct roll in either case. Anything that puts your FPS below 60 with double buffering will pull you to 30 fps on a 60hz monitor. Or at least that has been my understanding for a long time.

No, because with vsync enabled the CPU queues frames (CPU render ahead minumum 1 frame ever since 3xx drivers). So you basically get "CPU triple buffering" if you will (or quadruple or quintuple depending on render ahead setting).

The only time I've seen that happen is when I artificially limit the frame rate slightly below 60 with vsync+double buffering. Every other time the FPS dips below 60 (settings to high or what-have-you) I would drop to 30. Am I to assume that every time I go below 60 fps it's because I'm GPU limited?

My understanding is render ahead option and actual TB are to diffrent ways of actaul doing the same thing, other then one method can drop old frames and the other will render the old frames.

Im just trying to fiqure out if Swtor actual use TB or not. which almost impossible seeing how bad the engine is, I honestly never seen any game atlest ones I have that 60fps ever drop to 30 if i cant keep 60 fps and I always have vsync on.

And know my gpu isnt the issue it does 60fps fine hell its does 111 fps the game is actaul capped at. and it general will do with this only 70% gpu usage.

And soon as fps tanks to 20's gpu usage drop like brick to like 20% if that. mean while according to task manager my cpu usage never really goes past 30% at any time in the game. which bring me back to the game engine which is used that is ****

If you are using a multi-core computer, you will need to set CPU affinity. Right click on the shortcut and select “Properties”. In the target box, type in:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start "SWKOTOR" /D "C:\Games\LucasArts\SWKotOR\" /high /affinity 1 "C:\Games\LucasArts\SWKotOR\kotor.exe"

Games have so many buffers these days, it's hard to tell. It seems every new game that comes out adds some more buffers. At least that's how it feels like input-lag-wise. Must be because of multi-threading and keeping the CPUs fed. With 4 CPUs preparing frames, you're gonna end up with 4 frames on a buffer... If this continues, FPS games are going to feel like driving a boat very soon now.

Also, it's been a long while since I saw a game drop to 30FPS when it can't make 60 with V-Sync on.

Games have so many buffers these days, it's hard to tell. It seems every new game that comes out adds some more buffers. At least that's how it feels like input-lag-wise. Must be because of multi-threading and keeping the CPUs fed. With 4 CPUs preparing frames, you're gonna end up with 4 frames on a buffer... If this continues, FPS games are going to feel like driving a boat very soon now.

Also, it's been a long while since I saw a game drop to 30FPS when it can't make 60 with V-Sync on.

Buffer bloat everywhere these days.

Who said that the CPU is limited to serial, single-core operations when preparing a single frame?

But yes I agree, many games just feel too bloaty and not as snappy as, say, CS:GO.

Who said that the CPU is limited to serial, single-core operations when preparing a single frame?

But yes I agree, many games just feel too bloaty and not as snappy as, say, CS:GO.

CS:GO feels laggy if you played older games. Compare for example Half-Life 2 input lag with V-Sync vs CS:GO. Or go even further back to Quake 3 and Half-Life 1. Compared to that, CS:GO feels like the laggiest game ever.

CS:GO feels laggy if you played older games. Compare for example Half-Life 2 input lag with V-Sync vs CS:GO. Or go even further back to Quake 3 and Half-Life 1. Compared to that, CS:GO feels like the laggiest game ever.

What I wrote doesn't actually say much about CS:GO, if you get the meaning It's more like a rant. If CS:GO feels more laggy than older games, then what can be said about games that feel even worse that that? *Way* worse, actually. (Try playing Battlefied with V-Sync on, for example. In fact, it's crap even with V-Sync off, if you can believe that. How they managed to pull that off, is beyond me. Sure, game programming isn't exactly a trivial matter, but it's not rocker science either.)

I also thought that for a 60Hz monitor v-sync should lead to 60, 30, 20, 15, 10 FPS... Regardless of buffering.
(Moinitor Hz)/FPS must be an integer value with v-sync, right?

That is my understand of it "should" be to my understanding and i see fps values like in swtor with vsync on but then i see values like even with it vsync off in that game cpu barely using 35% and gpu is twittling its thumbs with 20% or less usage to when i see those low values.

That is my understand of it "should" be to my understanding and i see fps values like in swtor with vsync on but then i see values like even with it vsync off in that game cpu barely using 35% and gpu is twittling its thumbs with 20% or less usage to when i see those low values.

May be games with such CPU and GPU usage have nothing to offer to both processors...
Can triple buffering increase the usage levels?

Edit: Obviously I failed to capture the point of original question. I did not argue with you, I just started to express my confusion.

Edit2: And probably you were asking why 30 FPS and 30% of usage. I am really slow this weekend...